The Future of Education: priorities for the next election

Adrian Smith became President of the Royal Society on 30 November 2020. He is also Institute Director and Chief Executive of The Alan Turing Institute.

He is a mathematician with expertise in Bayesian statistics. This branch of mathematics represents uncertainties in the form of probabilities, which are then modified through the mechanism of Bayes theorem as new information becomes available. Adrian's comprehensive publications on diverse areas of Bayesian statistics have had a major impact on statistical practice in a wide range of disciplines and application areas.

Between 2008-2012, he was Director General, Knowledge and Innovation in BIS (now BEIS) and has previously worked with the UK Higher Education Funding and Research Councils. Adrian is Chair of the Board of the Diamond Light Source and is also a board member of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. In 2017, he carried out a review of the maths curriculum for 16-18 year olds for the Treasury and Department for Education. In the 2011 New Year Honours list, he was awarded the title of Knight Bachelor.

Rachel Sylvester is chair of The Times Education Commission and a political columnist and interviewer at The Times. She started writing about politics in 1996 and was a lobby correspondent on The Daily Telegraph before becoming political editor of The Independent on Sunday. She joined The Times in 2008.

Rachel was named Political Journalist of the Year at the 2016 Press Awards, also being named Journalist of the Year by the Political Studies Association and winning the Politics Journalism prize at the British Journalism Awards that same year.

Rachel presents the ‘Past Imperfect’ podcast on Times Radio alongside frequent collaborator Alice Thomson, and their new book ‘What I Wish I’d Known When I Was Young: The Art and Science of Growing Up’ was published in May 2022.

Kathryn joined the University of Derby as Vice-Chancellor on 1 September 2015. Her academic background is in Psychology and she continues to play an active role in research.

Before she came to Derby, Kathryn was Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of West London. She had special responsibility for academic provision and quality and was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic and Student Support Services and Dean of Students.

She was a Wellcome Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, for over seven years and  studied at the Universities of York and London. Kathryn has worked at the University of Chicago, the Rockefeller Institute in New York and the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel.

James is the Chief Executive of the Sutton Trust and has been in post since February 2019. Prior to that, James was Deputy CEO of the Trust’s sister charity, the Education Endowment Foundation. He also led the Trust’s £135m bid to set up the EEF in 2011, was its interim CEO and served as a founding Trustee.

James is also a trustee of the Centre for Homelessness Impact and a governor of a comprehensive school in the East Midlands, where he lives.

Helen James OBE is Professor (Emerita) and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Canterbury Christ Church University. She has over forty years in engineering, science and tertiary and higher education, holding a range of external leadership roles, including Director, Trustee and Chair. Currently, she is Chair, Education and Skills Board, IMechE; Trustee and Director of Turner Schools MAT; and member and former Founding Chair, Strategic Industry Advisory Board for the Kent and Medway Engineering, Design, Growth and Enterprise Hub (EDGE Hub).

Helen has supported grass roots STEM outreach throughout her career and she founded Xplore!, the Science Discovery Centre in Wrexham, in direct response to her passion and commitment to increasing and widening participation in STEM.

Helen undertook a mechanical engineering apprenticeship at Vickers Shipbuilding Ltd and tertiary education at Barrow in Furness College of FE from the age of 16. She subsequently became an armaments design engineer and environment test engineer and systems engineer in the Space industry. Helen believes passionately in the power of education to transform lives and create an inclusive society, and in the capacity for STEM to transform our economy, health and wellbeing.

Yvonne has been the Principal and CEO of Barking & Dagenham College since 2016, offering vocational, technical and professional education and training, from entry to level 7 to prepare young people and adults for further training, work or university. The College is diverse and inclusive, reflecting the local community of Barking and Dagenham both in terms of its student population, staff and leadership and governance team.

The College is the lead partner of the East London Institute of Technology, one of 20 in the country. In partnership with higher education and employers, the IoT focuses on delivering advanced and higher technical education and training in Engineering & Manufacturing, Digital and Construction sectors. The College is also one of 20 colleges engaged in the World Skills Excellence Programme.

Yvonne takes an active role as a trustee on the CITB, Creative and Cultural Skills and Care City; an advisor on the Pearson FE Reference Group and a member of the Green Skills Taskforce.

Yvonne is a strong advocate of equality, diversity and inclusion and is passionate about ensuring young people and adults, particularly the most disadvantaged, have access to opportunities to transform their lives. Yvonne is a member of the WorldSkills UK Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group and the Futures Youth Zone.